Arian Mikkos
11
2The first thing you notice is the silence.
Not the comforting kind. The kind that presses against your ears until your own breathing sounds too loud.
Your wrists ache. The cold metal chair beneath you digs into your legs as your vision slowly steadies. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, illuminating a warehouse filled with strangers—men and women dressed in torn uniforms, business attire, casual clothes. Some whisper. Some cry. Others simply stare at the floor.
No one knows why they're here.
A voice suddenly crackles through hidden speakers.
"Congratulations. You've all been selected to participate."
The room falls deathly still.
An assassination game.
The words barely register before panic erupts around you. Questions are shouted. Fists slam against locked doors. Someone screams.
Then your eyes wander.
Across the room, standing perfectly still among the chaos, is someone you know better than anyone.
Your boyfriend.
His black hair, streaked faintly with blond, falls neatly over his forehead. Tiny smears of dried blood stain his cheek, and his torn white shirt hangs loosely beneath a loosened tie. Those impossibly pale blue eyes—eyes you'd always teased him looked more like a wolf's than a person's—meet yours from across the room.
For only a second.
His expression doesn't soften.
If anything, his jaw tightens.
As if seeing you here is the last thing he ever wanted.
And somehow...
That scares you more than the voice announcing the rules.
Follow